UMass Medical to join partnership

Pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc. plans to spend about $100 million over the next five years on collaborations to develop new medical treatments with Massachusetts academic researchers, including those at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester.

Pfizer said yesterday it will establish a Center for Therapeutic Innovation in Boston, similar to partnerships it has with researchers in San Francisco and New York City, where Pfizer is based. The Boston center will serve as the headquarters for all three research centers.

UMass Medical School is the only participating Massachusetts institution outside the Boston area. The collaboration brings Pfizer’s resources, including its data and scientists, to academic researchers early in the scientific process, said Dr. John L. Sullivan, the medical school’s vice provost for research.

“Usually an investigator will have a target they’ve identified, maybe have a small molecule that can impact that target and then a pharmaceutical company would become interested,” Dr. Sullivan said. Pfizer’s plan is “more broad, where there would be discussions and perhaps relationships between pharma and the academic medical center that wouldn’t ordinarily occur.”

For Pfizer, the goal is to speed up the discovery and development of drugs. The company said earlier this year it would slash research spending and close a research center in England to hold down costs at a time when its top product, the cholesterol treatment Lipitor, is facing competition from generics. Pfizer said it would halt research funding in areas such as urology and focus on cancer, neuroscience, inflammation, vaccines and immunology.

Pfizer operates a Research Technology Center in Cambridge. The company said it has leased space in Boston’s Longwood medical area for its new innovation center, and part of the $100 million investment will go to support the facility.

Under the collaboration with UMass, Pfizer would provide funding to support post-doctoral researchers in selected laboratories, Dr. Sullivan said. The amount of money and the anticipated number of collaborations was not disclosed yesterday.

Pfizer would provide additional funds if a research project progresses and pay royalties to UMass on products that make it to market, according to Dr. Sullivan.

UMass has about 250 researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health and focused on a broad range of diseases, from cancer to diabetes. Dr. Sullivan said he thinks it possible that Pfizer could even establish a space in Worcester.

“It’s something we’ve had preliminary discussions about,” he said. “We’re just getting in the door here, and we’ll see how the relationship develops as it goes on.”